Cardinal George Pell, page-209

Well squid we were not there to hear all the evidence so we don't know what was presented, and after so much time has passed I don't know what there would have been. But there may have been some.
If as you are inferring, there was no hard evidence and the jury convicted based only on a single testimony then IMO that was a dangerous thing to do. An appeal would very likely overturn such a conviction because the charge is unproven.

In other cases where priests were convicted there were multiple victims giving evidence effectively becoming witnesses for each other. In that circumstance even without any hard proof it would remove any reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty. But IMO one persons word against another proves nothing and needs to be corroborated by either hard evidence or other witnesses.

Anyway I don't wish to speculate further because I don't know what was presented to the court.

Dave R.